Development and Performance Evaluation of an Engine Driven Air Assisted Teff Planter

Teff is a staple of Ethiopian culture and national identity and is very nutrient-dense. Ethiopia and its farmers now have more economic opportunities as a result. The process of planting involves putting seeds in the ground for optimal germination. It is among the most significant cultural customs related to the production of crops. At present it has little development in teff row seeder in Ethiopia. However, their field evaluations showed that, none of the developed planters has been functioned effectively, in way of the desired functional requirement, especially in all soil types as well as weather conditions of the country. So many research institutes and private sectors have been developed different types of teff row planting device which seed from single to many rows, animal drawn and operated manually. This work focused on the creation and performance evaluation of an inexpensive self-propelled five rows air seeder teff row planter in order to overcome the need for human labor for sowing, which leads to delayed operation, low yield, and high production costs. The developed machine consists of different major component parts like seed and fertilizer hoppers, driving wheel, air diffuser, controlling mechanism, seed and fertilizer delivery chute and the like. The planting machine's effective field capacity, theoretical field capacity, and field efficiency were determined to be 0.25 ha/hr, 0.31 ha/hr, and 0.81 ha/hr, respectively, during the performance evaluation. The largest plant population was observed replication 5 and the smallest observation was recorded at replication 3 which was 141.3 and 103.5 respectively.